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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28324869">Wanderer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hisvoicebrokemyheart/pseuds/Hisvoicebrokemyheart'>Hisvoicebrokemyheart</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, M/M, Memories, Mind Palace, Pining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:27:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,310</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28324869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hisvoicebrokemyheart/pseuds/Hisvoicebrokemyheart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal spends much of his time in captivity residing in his memory palace. When he can no longer visit Wolftrap, Virginia he turns to memories nearly lost to time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fannibal Holiday Gift Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wanderer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Cleo/gifts">Lady_Cleo</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy Hannidays to my dearest giftee, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Once I started I couldn’t stop.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hannibal built it all on his own. Of all his possessions, it was his most valuable. It was the one thing that he could never be stripped of. As a whole it was a testament to his evolution. He was given many sorrows and even more unexpected outcomes as years went on. He vowed to never forget a single moment.</p><p>He had found much solace inside as he grew older and the present held no exception. All modifications were lamented over and excruciatingly scrutinized. To be locked inside a solitary four walls was something Hannibal had never anticipated. He left no room for miscalculation, his life hadn’t allowed such a thing for many years. </p><p>Hannibal always allowed for guests in his memory palace. He often crafted rooms, sometimes entire wings or landscapes, for his visitors — some even becoming permanent residents beyond the mortal plane. </p><p>His guests never changed things on their own, not until Will Graham. The memory palace was a little different every time he came back after seeing Will. When he noticed it the first time he saw red. Control of his own mind had been stolen from him right under his nose with no warning. His feelings on the matter changed faster than he would have thought possible. </p><p>His anger and disbelief turned into something of anticipation. The home he built for Will in his mind only had two dogs. The piece of Will that lived inside of him was no stranger to Hannibal’s insistence on compromise. Aside from that it was nearly identical to Will’s actual home, Hannibal having painstakingly taken in as much of the details as he could in the few times he was invited in. There was so much warmth there that sometimes he wished he could curl up in it for all his days.</p><p>The door was locked now. Ever since Will turned him away he’d been shut out. Before he would step through a door in a seemingly mundane hallway and enter into the flatlands of Wolftrap with Will’s home in the distance. </p><p>After a long day of processing, and an even longer day of questioning, he was left to his own devices in his new cell and found himself pulling at Will’s door with no success. It gave Hannibal the sensation of being unmoored, and he remembered when Will told him about how he’d stand off in his yard and gaze upon his home like a ship on the open sea.</p><p>If anyone dared to ask, he would never admit that he took a seat on the ground in the hall leaned back against the door — knees to chest. With no one to interrupt him he stayed there long enough that his mind turned off, sleep claiming him in that very spot.</p><p>When he woke he took note of his cell from his bed. There wasn’t really much to take in. They’d stowed him away at the end of a dark hall with no immediate neighbors. It was nothing he’d complain about, but he knew the intent of an additional punishment when he saw one.</p><p>After his first meal of the day he returned to his memory palace. He roamed the halls pretending that he wasn’t there for only one thing in particular. It clawed at the back of his brain. Why wasn’t he allowed inside? </p><p>This time he didn’t leave his foyer. Hannibal took in his own handiwork, the main structure of his palace. He took inspiration from the many locations he had lived in throughout his life. He pulled architectural influence from the classic structures of Florence, and some of the materials from his own childhood home which he’d not seen in many more years than he’d actually lived there.</p><p>In the corner of his mind, closest to the surface, he knew he was needed back on earth. He expected Jack, or potentially Alana, though the latter seemed to find it especially difficult to face him following his recent incarceration.</p><p>Before leaving once more, he crossed the vast expanse of his mind and stopped in front of Will’s door. He made a singular attempt to turn the handle and no access was granted. Hannibal wasn’t one to ignore a sign and chose to cut his losses for the time being. Being locked away from Will, both physically and mentally, made part of him ache when he focused on what it really meant.</p><p>•••</p><p>Months passed by without another attempt at Will’s door. He pushed himself further and further away from it as the image, the feeling, of Will faded in his mind. There was nothing he could do to stop that. The human mind thrives on recency, memories only that of bits and pieces of exceptionally strong senses. </p><p>He pushed through a door that led him to the courtyard of his childhood home. He felt like he could smell Will’s aftershave on the reeds that he pushed through walking toward the manor and wondered if the scent would stick to his skin when he returned to reality. </p><p>While he never thought he would return home, leaving Chiyoh to care for his land, it pained him to know that the option was stolen from him. He had stripped himself of that choice for an equally selfish reason: so that Will could always find him. </p><p>Walking the grounds made him feel closer to Will. Many times in their conversations he tried to impart the importance of a strong mental fortress worthy of<br/>
retreating into. </p><p>He trailed along the perimeter of the home and ran his fingertips along the stony exterior. When he took in a deep breath he fought off the scent of fire and burning bones buried in his memories of this place.</p><p>In the distance he saw a small patch of wildflowers rise up to greet him as they crawled over the edge of the rolling horizon. Their presence was not one without purpose.</p><p>Chiyoh sent him a letter many years ago, a short time after he began to establish himself in Baltimore. Enclosed was a polaroid photo of the very same flowers surrounding a small headstone. She memorialized his sister on that hill, and he would never set his own gaze upon it. </p><p>A small part of Hannibal hoped that those wildflowers spread far and wide over the landscape, for not even that would be enough to depict the radiant energy that came from the gift of knowing Mischa Lecter. </p><p>Turning his gaze from the hillside, he set his sights on the cellar. He knew what used to lie behind the walls of that space, but time changed all things. If he was a betting man he would put quite the wager on the notion that Will spent much of his time in Lithuania taking in that room alone. </p><p>Crossing the threshold led him into a darkness unvisited for decades, and yet there was light. As if frozen in time he saw a masterpiece before him that he only wished he had created himself. </p><p>Much of his young adulthood was spent seeking out the men that dared to harm his baby sister, and their leader was left to rot. Hannibal wanted him to see and feel anguish in every waking moment, a projection of his childhood trauma.</p><p>What he saw before him was a second chance a life in a true form. The man was transformed — a deathshead moth looking back at him, all bones and glass.</p><p>It was beautiful.</p><p>No one else could give him such a gift. He let out a breath that he felt like he was holding in since the last time he saw Mischa’s face. Hannibal couldn’t protect her then, but Will had helped him honor her now. For that, he could not be any more grateful. </p><p>A chapter of his life was closed here upon that man’s transcendence. </p><p>He moved to leave this part of his life behind for good, but not before plucking up a small group of wildflowers as he moved to seal the door shut. </p><p>Hannibal would never see Lithuania again.</p><p>He walked through another door and into his office space in Baltimore. He took painstaking efforts to commit as many details of that place to his memory. Many pivotal moments in his last few years were summed up in the contents of that room. With the flowers still gently held in his grip, Hannibal hoped that the color of them would stain the pages he pressed them between.</p><p>•••</p><p>Shortly after experiencing the memories of his home, Alana moved him into a cell that could only ever be his. She worked to isolate him before, but beyond the elegant aesthetics, to some this new location could be considered cruel. There was no such thing as human contact. The little that he received came from an orderly bringing him mail that made it through a screening procedure, or one of his three square meals of the day. Immediately after pushing the drawer through to his side of the glass, the orderly would promptly leave the room and take up post just outside the locked French doors. </p><p>He was grateful for the few liberties that were bestowed upon him. He first asked Alana for a calendar. The monotony of each day made it hard to keep track of time as it passed. </p><p>After a full year at BSCHI they put a desk in his cell. As a little more time went by, to his surprise, he was given pencils and paper. He saw the luxuries for what they were, lures to keep him on the side of the veil anchored in reality.</p><p>When he finished a sketch he would pull the desk to the wall and climb up to tuck it under the crown molding that ran between the wall and the ceiling. Something about climbing on the furniture made him feel quite childlike and he would often find himself with a smirk on his face as he climbed down. </p><p>The first drawing he hung was a simple sketch of the living wall that sat outside of his kitchen. He cultivated enough herbs in that space alone that he never had to look for any elsewhere. The aroma that it provided in the immediate surrounding area was rich and filled with depth of the potential for different flavor profiles.</p><p>Halfway through the second wall sat a portrait of Winston. Of all of Will’s furry family, Winston always stood out to Hannibal. His coloration was enough to make the retriever memorable but there was an intuition in the animal’s eyes that, in similar fashion to his owner, always made Hannibal feel seen. </p><p>He exhibited an extreme amount of self control, nearly filling the perimeter of the room with various pictures before he began to sketch people from memory. </p><p>He started with Bedelia. She was always the one closest to seeing through to his true self. She was the one who gave him the push to test the limitations of his person suit, even if she was unaware of such permission being granted. She hung on the third wall, just rounding the corner from the second. </p><p>The room continued to fill, leaving no space between his works. One day, before he could consciously consider it, he found Will Graham’s eyes on the paper staring back at him. He worked through the sharp lines of his jaw, and the crook of his nose. He blurred the shape of Will’s curls with his finger against the page. When the full figure of Will’s face was before him he pressed his own forehead to the surface of the desk. His nose lined up with Will’s, and he closed his eyes. </p><p>His transition into his mind palace was well practiced. Where he started in the mind palace was random upon entry. He was seated in his office. It made him think of the time when Will first missed an appointment, the silence of his office was deafening around him before he’d decided to go out and find out where Will was. </p><p>When he laid eyes on him at the FBI academy that night he knew something was wrong. He could feel it in his chest, his heart surprising him by twisting up on the inside at the sight of Will looking so helpless before him. </p><p>He sat for a moment longer before he heard scratching at his door. No one ever came to him in his memory palace, he always sought them out.</p><p>Hannibal stood from the desk and made his way to the door, opening it slowly.</p><p>When he got the door open fully he saw that Winston was sitting before him. Hannibal bit at the inside of his cheek, nearly choking on the sense of familiarity that struck him.</p><p>He sunk to his knees without moving forward and held out both arms to the dog, encouraging Winston to come to him. When his hands hit Winston’s soft fur he closed his eyes to the emotions that welled up beyond his control.</p><p><em> Hello there</em>, he whispered, rubbing his thumb behind Winston’s ear. The dog turned his nose into Hannibal’s palm giving it a quick lick. <em> You have come a long way haven’t you?</em></p><p>Hannibal stood, turning away to walk toward the couch in the room and made sure Winston knew to follow him. He thought about how the Hannibal of ten years ago would turn his nose up at the idea of an animal on his furniture, but he had already faced the fact that Will changed him beyond his expectations in many different ways.</p><p>He laid back on the couch, patting his chest. It didn’t take much for Winston to hop up and set himself between Hannibal’s legs, head resting where his stomach rose and fell. The warmth of him was something Hannibal never knew he needed, starved of it for years now. He rested a gentle hand against Winston’s head and closed his eyes.</p><p>•••</p><p>Winston was always there to greet him now. He tried not to overthink what it meant for the dog to have come to him. It was one thing for Winston to show up only once, and another for him to never leave. It brought Hannibal an unexpected amount of joy.</p><p>Before he entered his mind palace in the early morning hours of the day, ignoring another scheduled attempt at an interview and psychological profile, he took note of the date.</p><p>He turned himself in three years ago. His life was debilitatingly mundane. How he felt in lock up often made him feel akin to the gods. When he was participating in life as a Baltimore socialite he was surrounded by overwhelming amounts of praise. The people around him gazed upon him with energy that bordered on worship. Sometimes that feeling alone was enough to keep him sated.</p><p>Even his mind tricks weren’t truly enough to stave off the pang of loneliness that snuck through his defenses upon waking.</p><p>Winston had been with him for the better part of a year, but he refused to pay Will’s door any mind. </p><p>On this day, he was nowhere to be found. Hannibal called out to him and received no form of a reply. He couldn’t even hear the distant sound of his nails clicking against the floor. </p><p>Without thinking he went to Will’s door and his disbelief he found it cracked open.</p><p>He stepped through to Will’s yard, closing his left hand into a fist. He could feel his fingernails digging into the soft skin of his palm and snow crunching beneath his feet. The grounding feeling it gave him was everything he could have asked for. </p><p>As he approached the house he could just make out Winston looking out at him from the porch. </p><p>The two of them crossed the threshold of the home together, both surprised as they entered. Everything remained untouched, it was identical to what it was before but it felt as if it was a shell of the past. Where Hannibal used to seek out the radiant warmth of the life Will led in Wolftrap, only cold indifference remained.</p><p>The thought of this place being abandoned by its captain sent a shudder down his spine. </p><p>He made his way through every room. He ran a gentle hand over the items he recognized: the magnifying glass mounted to Will’s desk, the oak mantle that sat above the fireplace, the leashes hanging from a hook near the door. </p><p>Winston followed at his heels as he canvassed the entire house. When he realized that Hannibal was lost deeper in his mind than the man even knew he hopped up onto the foot of the bed and curled himself up, nose under tail. </p><p>There were logs stack high beside the fireplaces and all the makings of a good fire nearby. Hannibal set to work to build up a consistent flame until the heat reflected back at him rivaled the warmth he used to feel stepping into Will’s home. </p><p>He stood from where he was crouched in front of the fire and made his way to where Winston rested. He too crawled up into the bed, toeing off his shoes as he went.</p><p>His head pressed down into the pillow and Hannibal watched the snow begin to fall outside the window. Before he fell into the unconscious, he briefly wondered if Will would ever show his face here again. </p><p>•••</p><p>Between the time he spent in his mind palace that day and the sound of the French doors opening to let someone into the room with him, Hannibal wondered if he even slept at all.</p><p>The doors were shut quietly behind whoever had opened them. Hannibal squeezed his eyes shut until he saw the white cracks of lightning behind his eyelids, still laying down on his bed. He felt too raw for any form of questioning, feeling closer and further from Will than ever before. </p><p>When he stood to face his guest he briefly wondered if he was still asleep. Hannibal’s heart pounded in his chest as he gazed upon one Will Graham. </p><p>He moved to the glass wall that separated them and pressed his palm firmly against it, cool to the touch. Will met him there, avoiding Hannibal’s searching gaze.</p><p>When Will’s hand moved to mirror his own he hoped that the heat of his palm radiated through to the other side. </p><p>“Hello, Will.”</p><p>Hannibal’s other hand scrambled for purchase, feeling too delicate. He gripped onto the opening of one of the port holes in the glass, knuckles bending around the open space to the outside world. </p><p>He watched as Will moved to meet his hand there, he could feel the heat of his palm as if it were coming from a mile away. His gaze was tied to the contact between them. </p><p>When Will’s hand squeezed his, heat ran down his arm into his chest. His eyes snapped up to Will’s face. They stared into the depth of one another, and Hannibal felt as if it would all disappear if he dared to look away.</p><p>“Hello, Hannibal.”</p><p>Will’s voice washed over him like a balm. He wondered if Will knew that just the sight of him could keep him full for the rest of his days. </p><p>Hannibal turned his hand and gripped at Will’s fingers. He wouldn’t let a sour feeling of regret taint this moment. Leaning his forehead against the glass pane he spoke in a low tone.</p><p>“I don’t think I’ve felt such uncertainty in all my life. I fear the realization that none of this is real.”</p><p>Will huffed out a laugh and Hannibal felt the thud of his forehead against the glass across from him. He glanced up through his lashes to see Will’s eyes flutter shut.</p><p>“I can assure you, I don’t think either of us have ever felt closer to reality than in this very moment.”</p>
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